voice trailed off. Did he look the same after his time in the army? She imagined his tall, wiry form and boyish handsomeness.
“She’s with me,” a husky voice interrupted her. She whirled, shocked into silence at the powerfully built man looming beside her. He’d definitely filled out from his military days. Her eyes flicked to his left leg, but not so fast that he didn’t catch her glance, his lips firming in a straight line. Warmth crept into her cheeks. She hadn’t wanted to make him feel self-conscious, but she’d gone and done it anyway. Not the best start to their reunion.
“It’s good to see you, Niall.” She searched his eyes, a jolt of familiarity zipping through her veins. The deep brown depths held the gold flecks she could count by heart, his lashes so thick they’d look girlish if not for his angular, masculine features. He’d always had high cheekbones, but now there was sharpness in his face, as if someone had chiseled out his firm, square jaw and the prominent brow that gave proportion to his strong nose and full lips.
His chestnut-colored hair was no longer clipped short, but layered lightly across his forehead and ears. He’d transformed from the young, earnest man she’d known to a handsome stranger. She flushed despite the steady stream of cool air blowing from an overhead vent. MaryAnne should have warned her about this change. It was doing something funny to her stomach.
“Shall we?” He held out his arm, and she took it, feeling awkward. Once she would have flown into his arms, and he would have swung her, laughing. But those days seemed distant, out of reach. Hopefully, they’d loosen up over lunch. She’d lost so much since she’d last seen Niall—Chris, her job, Brett. She wondered about Niall’s losses and knew the past few years must have been very difficult for him.
They ambled through the nautically decorated restaurant, navigating a maze of dark wood tables. Kayleigh forced her racing thoughts from the man beside her and surveyed the scene. The room resembled the inside of a ship with a wood-slatted ceiling, a brass railing along the oak bar and fishing nets and lures dangling from the walls.
Locals dressed in shorts, tank tops and flip-flops jabbered around them, their voices competing with a Jimmy Buffet tune. She hoped they wouldn’t have to shout to hear each other. There was so much she wanted to say.
She peeked at Niall’s stern profile. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt. But this was Niall. The boy she’d beaten in a bubble-blowing contest when they were eleven, the teen who’d taught her how to parallel park, the high school senior who’d celebrated with her when they’d been admitted to the same college, the young man who’d promised to write her every day from Afghanistan and then had stopped communicating with her altogether.
In crisp khakis and a white polo shirt that showed off his coloring and broad shoulders, Niall looked great. He was pale, probably from staying indoors as MaryAnne mentioned, but handsome. It felt as though she looked at him through the shifting lenses at an eye doctor’s office. One minute she saw him as her old pal, and the next she glimpsed an unfamiliar man with experiences and secrets she no longer knew. How strange to feel as if she was meeting him for the first time.
He pulled out the curved wicker back of her chair before taking his seat across from her.
“It’s good to see you,” she began, her voice sounding strained. Niall’s steady gaze was making it hard to concentrate. She hadn’t expected to feel this nervous and tongue-tied around him. “I hope you’re not here because MaryAnne forced you—”
“Let’s order, shall we?” he cut in, and flipped open his menu, Kayleigh dismissed. He could have been a drill sergeant rebuking a private.
Her temperature rose, but she bit her tongue. Was it possible he was nervous, too?
“And how are you two today?” chirped a waitress with blond hair dyed blue at the ends. She filled their water glasses and smiled, bouncing on the balls of her sneakers.
“Fine.” Niall lowered his menu.
“Would you like a table away from the kitchen?” Her eyes dropped to Niall’s left leg, and her mouth turned down in a sympathetic shape. “I saw you come in, and I wouldn’t want the servers to accidentally knock into your prosthetic as they go in and out with food.”
Kayleigh winced. Her losses had shaken her view of herself and life. She could only imagine how losing a limb had impacted Niall.
“We’ll stay,” growled Niall, his expression ominous. “And when I need your concern, I’ll ask for it.”
The server paled beneath her heavy makeup. “Then, may I start you off with a couple of drinks?”
“I’ll have a diet soda, please.” The waitress returned Kayleigh’s smile, but her face fell when she glanced back at a grim Niall.
“And you, sir?”
“Water’s fine,” he bit out.
“Bottled—”
He held up his glass. “Any more questions?”
“Very good,” she quavered, and rushed away.
Kayleigh’s fingers tightened around her menu at his abruptness. With each passing moment, her memory erased a bit of the friend she knew and replaced it with this harsh stranger. She needed to get past his grim exterior and discover if the person he’d been still existed.
“Do you know what you want?”
You, she almost said out loud. What if he misconstrued it? Thought she insinuated something other than friendship? Before he would have known exactly what she meant, but now she wasn’t sure.
“Yes,” she said at last. “How about you?”
“Of course.” His dark eyes looked straight into hers. “I always know what I want.”
RIGHT NOW, NIALL couldn’t deny that he wanted to be here, with Kayleigh. Since he’d last seen her four years ago, the sweet, funny girl he’d known had matured. Her luminous gray eyes held the silver flash he recalled, and her long black hair still curled around her face. Yet there was something different about her. Gone was the girl he’d gone to camp with, and in her place was a stunning woman. Her green sundress set off her gold-toned skin and showed off curves that made it hard to look away.
How long since he’d held a woman? He gave himself a mental shake as he caught himself staring at her mouth. This wasn’t a date. He’d come to advise and cheer up an old friend. Nothing more. And the sooner he ate and left, the better. So far, Kayleigh hadn’t treated him like a charity case, nor did she know his hand in her brother’s death, and he wanted to keep it that way. His strange reaction to her only complicated things further.
“Excuse me?” he asked when her soft lips moved.
“It’s been a while.” Kayleigh’s uptilted eyes searched his. “Too long.”
His fingers curled on his lap as he battled the urge to reach for her hand. “I’ve been busy.” The feeble excuse hung in the air between them, and he opened his mouth to clarify his meaning, then closed it. Better to let her think the worst of him. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be as bad as he deserved. He didn’t want her thinking they would go back to being friends.
“I’m sorry about your injury. Do you want to talk about what happened?”
“It’s in the past,” he said, then gritted his teeth against the truth that rushed to escape him. Instead, he swallowed it down and the familiar, hard weight settled in his stomach.
“Where were you stationed?” Her voice was almost too low to hear over the loud background music.
His gut twisted as he recalled the acrid smell of explosives around the besieged, remote outpost on his last day in Afghanistan. The slick sweat of his skin beneath his body armor. The staccato fire of bullets and flares of light